The Best American Mystery Stories 2004

From Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

Had Officer Nick Bolthouse not rolled up her street at just the right moment, Wendy Tudhope would now be dead, shot to pieces by an ex-husband who finally snapped.

It was a miracle, Wendy now tells one and all — a miracle that a most opportune radio call sent Officer Bolthouse to her home at just the right time.

But Wendy, God bless her, doesn’t know the half of it.

I. Brian

The vanity license plate on the big gold Lexus read SUE. But this was not the driver’s name; it was business promotion. For Brian was a lawyer, an “attorney-at-law.” Also, according to his business card: counselor, adviser, advocate, and litigator.

The most accurate label did not, however, appear on his card. For truth be told, which when the topic is a lawyer can be problematic, Brian Dobozy was above all else an awesome earner. Last year he admitted to the IRS net income well in excess of half a million. Clients paid him this as a result of time sheets, which if totaled would have posited for that year 5,333 hours of work performed by him on behalf of innumerable divorcées and drunks. Which, it follows, left him with just 9.4 hours during each of that non-leap year’s 365 solar days to do all other non-cash-generating activities, such as eating, sleeping, and playing.

Thus, Brian M. Dobozy’s law practice was the juridic equivalent of stack ’em deep and sell ’em cheap. Herein the principles are: 1. When considering a new case, what matters is not current caseload or legal merit, but client pocket-depth. 2. Give priority to the client screaming loudest. 3. When in doubt, delay. 4. Bill for everything, tangible and non. 5. Always get paid. Success as an earner came partly from slicking to these principles, which made up for his being an indifferent legal mind, a so-so writer, and not quite the world’s greatest strategist. With even an iota of self-awareness, Brian Marcellus Dobozy could also have attributed his prosperity to a vivid courtroom presence, strong manipulation skills, fast footwork, blithe willingness to be detested, inurement to embarrassment, and unparalleled ability to keep twirling a dozen plates at once.

Which makes for one heck of a hectic 14.6-hour workday. That’s why, on this sunny autumn morning, Brian Marcellus Dobozy, J.D., simultaneously drove his big gold Lexus at twenty over the limit on Detroit’s Lodge Freeway, talked on his cell phone, and scribbled notes on a pad braced to his steering wheel. He was, of course, late on this occasion for a show-cause hearing in a divorce matter. But that was all right. The client was tame, the judge was a poodle. Brian Marcellus Dobozy, Juris Doctor, was sure he could get the hearing dismissed for a few weeks.

He had no clue who Wendy Tudhope was.

He did not know the impact he would have on her today.

And never would.

2. Brian, Donna, and Dario

Dario Giannetti also knew nothing about Wendy Tudhope. And even if he had, Dario would have dismissed her out of hand. Happy, contented women were of no use to him.

This is why, on this particular sunny autumn morning, Dario Giannetti sat on a hallway bench outside Judge Popcorn’s courtroom, chatting up one Donna Nenno, whom he had just met. Though quite heavy and showing more than her fair share of middle-aged wear, Donna was not uncomely. But Dario was not picky about size, age, or looks; he had other criteria that Donna met to a T. She was female. She was embroiled in a messy divorce. Her soon-to-be-ex had dumped her for another. She was hurting for money. She was filled with fear at the bleak alone-years she saw ahead, and though she tried hard to hide it, she was almost giddy with disbelief at the unexpected attentions of a handsome, well-spoken, obviously professional man.

Having flashed her and distracted her and lathered on the chatter, Dario Giannetti proceeded to work her expertly, fielding her tentative questions with smiles, direct eye contact, and occasional humor. What do you do? Law enforcement, he answered. That pleased her. He not only obeyed rules, but enforced them too. He knew she was thinking, he probably carries a gun, giving him the tangy odor of danger. Where do you live? Plymouth, he told her. Really good. Upscale community with a veneer of class. Do you have kids? All grown, he replied. Perfect, he saw in her eyes. He brought to the table the weary experience of parenthood without inflicting on the impending Donna-Dario relationship (for that, he knew, was the head-movie she was watching) the burden of having to deal with them. Plus, he knew that to her he looked yummy. Lithe and slight, exotically dark complexion, great cologne, and that perfectly coiffed, very thick, brilliantly white hair. Women like Donna, he knew from experience, yearned to wear him like an emblem.

Oh yes, for Dario Giannetti things were moving well there in that busy courthouse hallway, as Donna Nenno shifted herself a bit closer on the bench, gave him an occasional casual touch, furtively adjusted strands of her blond hair, tittered at his jokes. He’d passed her screening questions with flying colors, and ta-da! all without lying. The one question she had not asked was how his own divorce was going. To that question he would, without blinking, have lied. Not only was his divorce not in fact “going,” it had in fact been over and done with for five years already. It was during that experience that he’d learned firsthand that these courthouse hallways teemed with many a Donna Nenno — shell-shocked by her marital train wreck and for this one time in her otherwise average, proper, and wholesome life unlikely to resist the almost visceral urge to smear a man like Dario “Mister Right Now” Giannetti onto her emotional wounds like a big old salve stick.

Having regular professional courthouse business, Dario trolled this hallway once or twice a month, “to pick the low-hanging fruit,” as he thought of it. Mostly nothing happened, but eight times it had, and quite tastily too. Feeling Donna’s warmth, Dario had her toe-tagged for Number Nine. Excellent, he thought. He didn’t want to work today, anyway. He’d wait for her here and have a tasty itinerary to present to her after her court business. Probably lunch at Très Vite, then a drive around Belle Isle. Afterward, drinks at Half Past Three, and then they’d head up to the St. Clair Inn where the wine and romance would flow in the candlelight.

“Wait a minute, hon,” Donna said, touching his hand as she threw a look over her shoulder. “Here comes my lawyer. We’re going in. Can you stick around?”

“Sure,” he said casually. He glanced past her to see who she was eyeing, and the sight of the tall, handsome man in a gray suit bustling toward them made him flinch. Damn. Why him? Why now?

Donna stood; he followed suit. “It’s just a quickie,” Donna said nervously as the lawyer cruised up, smiling sardonically at them. “Morning, Brian,” she said.

“Hi,” he said, squinting down. “Who’s your friend, Donna?”

“This is Dario,” she answered, beaming.

“Hi-ya, Counselor,” Dario said, with a wink Donna could not see.

Brian’s eyes, aware but unimpressed, shifted to Donna. “Let’s go,” he gestured.

“Okay,” she said. “Wait for me,” she told Dario, squeezing his hand.

“I think not,” Brian said casually.

“What?” she asked.

“Dario has someplace else he needs to be.” Brian smiled. “Isn’t that right. Mister Dario Giannetti.”

Dario’s inward sigh was sullen. “Yeah, come to think of it.”

Round face pale, Donna’s blue eyes glanced back and forth between the two men. “You know each other? What’s this about?”

Brian had a large hand steady on her elbow. “Tell you later. Let’s go,” he murmured, guiding her toward Judge Popcorn’s door. Over his shoulder he threw lightly at Dario: “Buzz off.”

Grim, vexed, Dario Giannetti marched down the hall toward the elevator. Donna or no, he had not planned to work today. But now, denied Donna by the evil appearance of Dirtbag Dobozy, one of the few men in the world who had ever whipped him, he had steam to blow off. The best therapy was to collar a few rascals. He owed himself a return visit to the Bide-a-Wee. He knew the big bust last Monday hadn’t bagged them all. The remaining rascals would have their guards down, never expecting him to strike again so soon.

Just as Wendy Tudhope, a whole state away, did not expect the visitor who was preparing to hit the road.

3. Dario, Hua, and Roger

Qian Hua, on the other hand, fully expected the impending visit. She did not know who it would be, or when they would come, but it was certainly on its way. For ren shi like her — the term translates roughly as “human snakes” — life is a constantly watchful, vigilant, and tense business, characterized by close calls and narrow escapes. As with last Monday’s raid, during which the agents — plainclothes men with guns, supported by uniformed police with more guns — had blocked the Bide-a-Wee Motel exits and then overrun the place. Hauled off had been several of Hua’s coworkers who, like her, had no papers. Cited again was Mr. Max. Hua herself had been showering at the time, preparing for her night job at Humphrey’s. The agents had overlooked her.

That time. But they would be back. The certainty did not scare Hua. She had been at this too long, been through too much, to let what was wholly out of her control distract her from the job at hand. Which was, on this bright, sunny autumn noontime, making up the ground-floor rooms of the Bide-a-Wee Motel. She had two to do before going to her afternoon/evening job. Hard work, but she was very good at it, and she knew her good work pleased the generally unpleaseable Mr. Max.

He was certainly one of the better people she had met since leaving Guangdong Province last year. As Hua scrubbed the tub with brisk, efficient movements, she let a slide show of faces parade through her mind. The loan sharks who took the equivalent of ten thousand dollars of her parents’ money as down payment, and required Hua to sign a renqing for the other two-thirds, with her family literally held as collateral. The shetou (snake heads), the smugglers whom she paid for her seagoing escape. The Vietnamese gangsters who, after bringing her ashore in California, informed her that for this “service” she owed them a thousand dollars, which she clearly did not have. The thugs who ran the “safe house” — what a contradiction in terms that was — where Hua, treated less than kindly by men without souls, worked off her debt under sweatshop conditions. Until one glorious day she saw her chance and escaped.

Sure that if caught by the INS she would be jailed in American dungeons for many years, and anxious to avoid recapture by the Vietnamese thugs, Hua had stayed on the move. From city to city on a zigzag course east, she hooked up and split off, worked jobs good and bad, dodged trouble sometimes through luck but usually by pluck and daring, worked on her English, applied her formidable intelligence learning all she could about being an American, and in all ways and at all times did what had to be done.

Metro Detroit, with more varieties of non-Caucasians in larger numbers than just about anywhere else, seemed like a safe haven for now. Here Hua went from simply surviving to starting really to live, perhaps even to thrive. Certainly the Bide-a-Wee housekeeping job was grueling work with its disgusting moments. And no question her exhausting work on the stage at Humphrey’s, with its raucous music, fetid smells, and usually intoxicated and often grabby customers, was a trial for one as fastidious and proper as she. But the jobs brought in the cash she needed. Especially the dancing. With her exoticness and flair. Hua earned more cash in one night than her housekeeping job brought her in a full week. All of which she parceled out, every Saturday: a portion for the loan shark, some to her family back in China, the rest to pay for her tiny room and books and food.

Today, Hua thought as she wiped down the bathroom mirror, she was tired. Two rooms to go here, then she would have liked nothing better than to go home and collapse and sleep till dawn. But she knew she would do her shift at Humphrey’s anyway. Because every day she went there, she told herself, was one day less that she’d have to. Things would get better. Things always got better. This was America.

According to the clock, she had spent twelve minutes in room 322. Just enough. Hoisting the full plastic garbage bag, she stepped out onto the sidewalk. To her right she saw a plain blue sedan pull past. It was driven by a man with brilliantly white hair and seemed to be headed for the motel office. The sight piqued her curiosity as she walked with the heavy garbage bag past her housekeeping cart and other motel room doors and toward the end of the courtyard. Rounding the corner into the shorter driveway she passed a few more rooms and a white Buick on her way to the garbage dumpster. She disposed of her bag and had started back the way she’d come when she noticed a middle-aged man just finishing changing the tire on the white Buick. Obviously rushed, he was throwing tools back into the trunk.

She wondered why she suddenly felt so edgy.

As Hua approached room 322, two things happened. First, she remembered what she’d heard about the INS agent who’d led Monday’s raid: “bright white hair.” Second, she saw him again. It was him, she was sure, down at the end, walking straight at her.

Without thinking, Hua turned and skipped quickly back the way she’d come. She was certain the agent had seen her and was picking up his pace. She had to hide, but where? Rounding the corner, for the moment out of his sight, she saw the white Buick. Its owner was absent, and the trunk lid was still up. Flying on her lithe dancer’s legs, Hua raced for the car and leapt lightly into the trunk, at once bending down and pulling the lid shut atop her.

Inside was close, warm, and very dark, like the container in which she’d ridden over from China. Hua measured her breathing and forced herself into a relaxed stillness as one minute grew into two, three, four. The thud against the car almost made her jump, and for an instant she thought she was done for. But then the engine started and the car lurched backward, and Qian Hua knew that she had slipped through their fingers yet again.

But to where? And for what?

4. Hua, Roger, and Eric

Roger Twine was an unhappy man.

As such, he was just like another man who at that moment was driving his Ford Expedition south, bound for the Cincinnati home of Wendy Tudhope. Both the Expedition driver and Roger Twine, who were wholly unaware of each other, wore the stern, tight-lipped scowl that Wendy would have recognized. She was just now greeting her twin daughters as they returned home from junior high; for the record, she did not know and would never meet Roger Twine.

Unhappy Roger Twine, standing in a long, shuffling line of boarding passengers in the humid jetway of Gate A56 at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, was cheesed off to be standing in the long shuffling line of boarding passengers. For one thing, Roger Twine was a PacLantic Airways Gold Club member. Gold Club members do not stand in lines — long, shuffling, or otherwise. Gold Club members are not limited to just one carry-on bag. Gold Club members are not assigned a middle seat on the starboard side of a DC-9, only to be injection-molded, Roger expected, between a couple of linebackers. Gold Club members do not board planes by row, thereby losing first shot at overhead compartment space for the one carry-on that Roger was allowed today by the snotty gate agent, thank you so much, you really earned your six bucks an hour today, butthead.

Roger Twine was also cheesed off because he wasn’t supposed to be on this 4:05 flight in the first place. Roger had been ticketed on a 2:00 flight. Had he taken it. Roger would, as carefully planned, have rolled into his driveway by five-thirty, safe and sound, clean and green, his wife no wiser.

Now, he had to figure out a cover story, which would be tricky. Ellen clearly had her dark suspicions about him, especially after that cell-phone episode last month.

Those damned security people! Roger shuffled ahead a step or two. It was all their fault. Sure, he’d been running late anyway. That flat tire — who’d have predicted that? Of the hundreds of cars he’d rented over two decades of travel, he’d never had a flat. Not till today at the Bide-a-Wee, forcing Roger, who was, as usual, cutting things close getting to the airport, to change the tire himself. He didn’t dare call his road service: Ellen opened all the mail.

Even with that delay, he’d have made the 2:00 were it not for the Gestapo Checkpoint Charlie that now “guarded” the airport rental car plaza. Security was one thing, but wasn’t it overkill to search every returning rental car? Why, Roger seethed, couldn’t they use a little commonsense judgment? Did Roger Twine, tall, middle-aged, gray-haired, distinguished-looking, casually dressed in pricey polo and Dockers, toting an expensive laptop computer and rolling a leather wheel bag, fit the profile of a terrorist?

Yet, common sense notwithstanding, the guards — no kids, these; he wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d starred in the old Adam-12 TV show — approached both sides of Roger’s car and peered in. And then asked him to pop the trunk release. Which of course he did.

Oops.

A long time later, the cops of various flavors — Roger never did get straight how many agencies were represented in the airport security office, but it seemed like everybody showed up but Tom Ridge — grudgingly decided that Roger was telling the truth when he insisted that he had NO idea, none whatsoever, why the trunk lid of his rental car had swung open to reveal a young Asian woman.

Luckily, she was alive and unhurt. Even more helpfully, the very young woman, though obviously scared and lacking English language skills, had attested to the cops that Roger had not known she’d secreted herself in his trunk.

And so, after taking down all Roger’s information and grimly assuring him they’d contact him again if needed, the cops had turned him loose. Clearly late for his 2:00, barely in time for his sardine-can center seat on the 4:05, with an hour in the air to eke out an alibi for Ellen. She had paged him twice and left a message on his cell-phone voice mail and was already ear-pricked and sniffing the wind and lying in wait.

With excruciating slowness Roger shuffled through the DC-9 door. Peeking around the corner. Roger saw that first class, where he should have been, was indeed full. Damn it to hell, he thought. Probably not a one among them with the miles Roger had!

What to tell her? By now Ellen had certainly called the post and learned he had not been there at all today.

Inching down the first-class aisle, dragging his roll bag, Roger bobbed and weaved, trying to get a glimpse of the overhead storage compartments back in coach. He could see that the rear compartments were full already. Above row 12, where Roger had (freakin’ middle) seat D, there was still space in the overhead compartment. Maybe enough for his roll bag.

It was hot on the plane, and Roger was sweating. His face felt like it was burning up. From somewhere ahead a baby was screaming. Making things worse, it occurred to Roger that Ted probably had the duty today. Ted had been told that Roger was spending the day at a conference at the Carlisle. Roger’s stomach wrenched.

Almost out of first class now and into coach. Ahead, Roger could see people stuffing the overhead compartments full. Space was running out. The girl behind him turned for some reason, giving him the backpack-smack, without so much as a glance of apology. Roger flinched and tensed for an instant, brimming with harsh words.

If by evil chance Ellen had gotten to Ted, and Ted had mentioned the Carlisle to her, and Ellen had checked for Roger at the Carlisle, then Katie bar the door. Through Roger’s mind kalei-doscoped scratchy audio and video samples of Ellen screeching questions, demands, and accusations; lawyers and judges and accountants; e-mails and chat logs and AmEx invoices; testimony by Darlene and Carol and (ohmyGod no) Jenny; exposure of the funny business with Roger’s retirement fund. Not to mention the permanent loss of Ellen’s fat inheritance.

Up ahead, a blond man in glasses and sport coat thrust a big silver steel box into the compartment above row 12. And then moved on to his seat in row 15.

“Hey!” Roger shouted. “You! Get that out of there!”

Faces turned. The man looked at Roger, puzzled.

“That’s my row!” Roger yelled. “You get that piece of junk out of there!”

The man smirked, like this was some kind of put-on. “Take it easy, man. First come, first served.”

Roger was almost to 12 now. His middle seat was empty, the flanking ones occupied. Above, the steel case hogged half the compartment. Clearly there was no room for Roger’s roll bag too. “Are you taking it out?” Roger demanded. “Or do I do it for you?”

Murmurs bubbled all around Roger in the hot aircraft, with the uncomfortable shuffling of people politely pretending they weren’t paying attention. The row-15 snotnose, who had obviously never flown before and did not know the rules, said calmly, “Please leave it alone and find your own space.”

“We’ll see about that,” Roger said. Hovering over the passenger seated at the aisle, Roger reached into the compartment for the steel case. It was heavy and seemed to be stuck. Grunting and cursing. Roger tugged at it, as protesting voices echoed around him. The case shifted and then came loose. Triumphantly Roger pulled at it hard, freeing it from the compartment.

But the steel case, being heavier than he expected, and awkward and slippery, tumbled loose from his hands.

And fell.

And landed with a sickening smack.

5. Eric and Missy

“Can you tell me his condition?” Eric asked, cupping his cell phone to his ear as he swung shut the door of his car. Listening intently, he ambled up to the tinted glass door of Suite 300 on which was Stenciled FEDDERSPILL BROS. ENGINEERING SERVICE. “That’s good,” he said into his phone as he sauntered through the door and past the receptionist with a wave and wink. “No,” he said presently, “just, uh. I saw the incident, just wanted to be sure he was all right. Thanks for the update.”

Eric clicked his phone shut as he passed a well-dressed woman seated in a visitor chair. She looked expectantly at him, sizing him up; Eric smiled back. In the sprawling open-plan offices, the air was hissing slowly out of yet another very hectic day. Eric knew, because he’d checked before leaving for the airport, that the Visteon team would be burning midnight oil on a rush RFP, but otherwise most employees left by five-thirty or so. Unlike many in his position. Eric did not believe in routine overtime, voluntary or otherwise. Work people too many hours and the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Besides, he believed, people needed and deserved lives outside the job. Even employees.

As was his habit, Eric first breezed into the corner office, to find Jerry, as almost always, on his feet and on the phone. The younger man wore a dress shirt and tie and sported a buzz cut, the opposite of Eric not only in job function but also in apparel, appearance, and attitude. Creative friction was one secret of a well-run business and Fedderspill Brothers was well run indeed, as attested to by their growing list of tier-one automotive clients. What Eric and Jerry shared, besides some DNA, was white-hot intellect. And fierce loyalty.

Jerry dropped his phone on the hook without a goodbye. “What happened? Miss the flight?”

Eric shrugged lazily, dropping into a visitor chair. “Got canceled. Some air-rage yay-hoo wigged out, dropped a suitcase on another guy’s head.”

Staring bug-eyed, Jerry exhaled in disbelief, but stayed on message. “But what about Monaghan? When you going to see them now?”

“Fortunately, the guy wasn’t hurt bad,” Eric said. “He’ll be all right.”

“What about Monaghan?” Jerry pressed.

Eric shrugged again. “I’ll run out there tomorrow instead. Lainie was fine with it.”

“She can afford to be,” Jerry answered, fussing with something atop the pile of papers on his desk. “She’s not the one needs something from us, it’s the other way around.”

“I’m sure we’ll work something out,” Eric replied.

“You realize,” Jerry fussed, “we need them inside the tent with us, peeing out. You’ll have to hit a home run for us, Ricky.”

“So,” Eric said patiently, “instead of meeting Lainie and Tom tomorrow. I’ll see them the day after. It’ll be all right.” The two eyed each other, Jerry tense under the weight of a thousand details and innumerable eventualities, Eric living more in each moment, calmly taking things as they came. “Any fires for me to light? I’ve got tee-ball tonight.”

“Nothin’,” Jerry fussed, fluttering fingers. “Go on, take off, I’ll lock up.” Eric rose. “Oh, wait a minute,” Jerry rushed on, “there’s one more second interview—”

“Sitting out there?”

“Her, yeah,” Jerry grumped. “I was supposed to see her a half-hour ago, I’ve been jammed. But now that you’re here—”

“I’ll take it,” Eric said easily. “No problem. For which slot?”

“The marketing,” Jerry said, handing the file to him.

“If I like her,” Eric grinned, “I might give her a friendly warning to steer clear of that jinx job.”

“If you like her,” Jerry said darkly, “and she’s willing to work for what we’re willing to pay, you handcuff her to a desk.”

Laughing, Eric eased out and up the hall with his languid way of walking. In contrast to Jerry’s, his own office was a riot of papers and drawings on a U-shaped work surface, dominated by a boxy CAD terminal and two wide-format printers at one end, and a conference table at the other. Several prints from Goya’s Los Caprichos lined the walls. Above his cluttered desk a framed sign read, to THE OPTIMIST, THE GLASS IS HALF FULL / TO THE PESSIMIST, THE GLASS IS HALF EMPTY / TO THE ENGINEER, THE GLASS IS TWICE AS BIG AS IT NEEDS TO BE. Eric leaned against his desk, glancing over the resume as the woman came in. “Mr. Fedderspill?”

He smiled at her. “Eric. Have a seat. Ms.... Bowmer?”

“Melissa,” she acknowledged and seated herself stiffly in a visitor chair. She was Eric’s age, about, but seemed more ground down by the years. Full face and figure, been-around eyes squinting through tinted lenses, dark hair pulled back indifferently into a loose tail. She wore a navy single-breasted suit over what looked like a white tank top. Her ears and fingers were ringless; she sported no jewelry at all save an anklet chain above a stain that appeared to be a tattoo. Eric thought she worked overly hard at her smile and sensed that her dynamism — what little she had — was forced, especially for one of the marketing persuasion, for whom perkiness was the default demeanor. He wondered what her problem was. The late hour? Quiet desperation caused by who knew what? Bad spot in the meds cycle? At first take she seemed not terribly likable, but that neither surprised Eric nor ruled her out for the job. People who were good at marketing, he had learned, were not for him the likable sort. But this wasn’t just that. With her there was something more. He felt it almost at once. Something way back, just beyond reach in the fog.

Skimming the resume, Eric realized he had seated himself on his drafting stool, with his big work desk between him and the applicant. He was surprised at himself; usually he conducted interviews at the conference table to foster a more relaxed atmosphere. Oh well, he thought, here we are. With a smile, he started the interview, as usual, with the present, working his way back.

She answered questions by rote, reeling off well-oiled set pieces with all the verve of an actor at a long run’s end. To Eric she looked blurry, her features not quite in sync. For a man who earned his bread with his ability to see clearly and render tangible the most obtuse concepts. Eric found that his eyes and his perceptions kept trying to stretch Melissa Bowmer into someone else entirely. Even her name was all wrong.

Gradually one particular smile of hers emerged that seemed right. In earlier days that one particular smile had played many minutes per period. Now it just flickered from time to time, suggesting that three decades of’ intervening life had not disabused her of her self-image of privilege and entitlement. Eric began to hear from an echoing distance the clatter of a manual typewriter and the chugga-chugga of the Associated Press teletype. In his mind’s eye he saw Melissa Bowmer, or whoever she was, sitting cross-legged in jeans on the city room table. Never pretty, just young, she cradled a bottle of red pop, smiled that one particular smile, and was most pleased to be giving Eric his “reality adjustment.”

At this point in the interview they had worked their way back to her college career. Eric set the resume down. “Ever get back there?”

“Where?”

“The Daily.”

Melissa Bowmer sat stock still. Several times, unwillingly, her lips pressed, as if trying to hold something in. “So you do remember,” she said steadily. “I couldn’t tell.”

“But it wasn’t Melissa,” Eric said vaguely, looking past her. “You were Missy. Missy... Schrupp.”

“I’m flattered,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because you remember me.” Again with that one particular smile.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Vacating the smile, she released a long long breath. “Okay.”

Eric watched her and said nothing. Outwardly composed, inwardly he was stunned to find himself face to face with someone he had not encountered in nearly thirty years.

“Sometimes, you know, sometimes” — Melissa said, nervously swiping her hair — “decisions are — well, they’re hard.”

“I know,” Eric said. “I’ve made a few myself.” Sitting there, he realized the shock he was juicing in wasn’t from meeting Missy again. The shock came from being forcibly brought face to face with someone he’d thought long gone, the long-ago Eric who was insecure, sensitive, scared.

“Then you understand.”

“Oh, I do indeed.” Which was true. He understood that Missy Schrupp, simply by appearing, had the power to take him back to that place and hurt him, quite profoundly, once again.

She looked away. “I do wish I’d handled it better. I was just a kid.”

“Whatever.”

“Well.” She eyed him. “Any point in continuing?” she ventured.

Because he was a kind man, Eric’s instinct was to fog. Instead he told the truth: “None.”

She blinked once and looked away. “Okay. Thanks for your time.” She rose. He did too, and out of innate politeness walked her to his office door. There she looked up into his eyes, her confidence and balance gone. “I really need this job.”

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” he said, putting her back in the past where she belonged. Despite the gentleness of tone, his words felt terse and vindictive in his mouth. But, he reasoned, he was showing her far more mercy than she had shown him, there at the end.

“I could do a hell of a job for you here,” she said quietly. “If you’d just let go of what happened.”

“Let go?” Eric repeated softly. After a moment she realized he would not — or could not — say more. Stonily, she ducked her head and turned and walked down the hall. “Good luck,” he forced himself to say, well out of her earshot.

Strolling back into his office, tired from the long day, the airport calamity, and the emotions that had just swept through him, Eric found the words he’d groped for before: I can let go of what you said, and I can let go of what you did. What I can’t let go of is how you made me feel.

6. Missy, Ту, and Sam

By now, on that bright autumn day, Len Schooley was passing Wapakoneta, his black Ford Expedition cruising steadily at the speed limit in the center lane of southbound I-75. Wendy Tudhope sat at her iMac in the library of her suburban Cincinnati home, surfing the Net for an article on the translation of relics. And, some two hundred and fifty miles north, Missy Bowmer drove west on the boulevard, passing the GM Pole town plant at the Detroit-Hamtramck line. Silting stiffly at the wheel of her red Chevy Celebrity, she drove by instinct, in a place all too grimly familiar: dead numb.

She wanted a drink, but what else was new. Since the age of thirteen, when she’d stolen her first taste of her grandma’s homemade raisin-jack from a big jug in the cellar, she’d wanted a drink. During and after each day of high school and before every piano recital. Before each date and after having sex. Before both weddings, throughout the marriages, and especially during the divorces. She’d wanted a drink to celebrate and to grieve, in crowds and alone, by the glass or out of the bottle, fully engaged and utterly blacked out. She’d especially wanted a drink since her most recent one, twenty-two wretchedly white-knuckled days ago, when Evan issued his ultimatum and underlined it by abandoning her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” the son of a bitch had insisted, even while packing his PlayStation 2 (a sign of how serious he was). “Just over to Merle’s.” This paintball pal and NASCAR nut lived, Missy believed, somewhere in Detroit’s Boston-Edison section. She remembered, vaguely, visiting his place once. His big house was across from a park where she thought she recollected Evan saying Ту Cobb used to hit baseballs in for the neighborhood kids, way back when. She thought about going there now. She was pretty sure she could find it. She needed to see Evan. To tell him about her twenty-two sober days; to tell him how badly she needed him; to tell him about Fedderspill.

Another hard knock, and like all the others hardly her fault. Who could have predicted it? Oddly, she did remember Eric. He was a cute puke a year behind her, bespectacled and earnest as could be. She was pretty sure they’d had a flinglet, and why not, in those liberal pre-AIDS seventies; it was just something to do, like trying on different skates. To dally carnally with someone who worked for her was probably not the wisest thing, but rules were looser back then, too.

Let’s see, she thought, checking street signs. Boston-Edison, that was northwest of here. Maybe she’d take Woodward. If she could find that park, she could find Evan’s house...

Oh, those had been grand times. Missy was the university paper’s first female managing editor. What a glorious and long overdue switcheroo to have all these males working for her for a change. Each vying for position, currying her favor, waiting on her hand and foot, and hoping for that single nod from Missy that would put his skinny fanny in an editor’s chair. Missy had enjoyed that courtship routine, especially with the most ambitious ones. They’d do anything to please her. She gave them extra work assignments, she made them take her to lunch, she played them off each other, she’d get them backbiting and gossiping about and against each other — always exciting.

Missy slowed up at the old GM World Headquarters building for the light at Woodward. North, that’s right, and then west on — what would it be? Virginia Park? She’d try that. She was a little vague on exactly where this Ту Cobb park was.

Eric had paid her court, as she remembered things, but in a more businesslike way. Thinking about it now, she thought he never seemed to like her very much. He did precisely what she asked, and he seemed pleased at her hints that an editor’s chair would be his. Of course there had never been a chance of that, ever; his application was dead on arrival. As a junior, he should have known that! Juniors never got to be editors. Missy had been amused that he’d taken seriously her double-talk and empty hints, trailing after her like a donkey stretching its neck for a carrot. After Missy had finally, and with quiet satisfaction, given him his reality adjustment, she had been surprised (but only briefly) that he quit the newspaper entirely. What a waste, she thought. He’d have made a great reporter someday, he really would — if he ever quit acting like a baby.

The Woodward red lights were not synchronized. Missy plugged north, barely getting into second gear. At Seward another light stopped her. Thinking about Eric was upsetting, but why, she could not have said. Presently she discerned, from the drill-down deep into the sludge of her memory, that those days had not been so great after all. Moreover, Missy realized with dull certainty that she had never slept with Eric at all. He had been engaged to be married, she remembered now, to a mousy English teaching fellow. He had never had the eye for Missy that others had had back then — way back then.

Focusing, Missy realized she was staring at a bar sign. Below the bar’s name and a neon beer ad was a poster that said PITCHER NIGHT! With instant and brutal clarity Missy’s fertile imagination conjured a large glass pitcher brimming with thick, golden, ice-cold Sam Adams beer, foam slopping richly over the edges, condensation misting the crystalline sides. Ту Cobb’s park and Evan’s house were a few blocks away yet. And Eric, Eric Fedderspill, damn him. Why not? Why the hell not?

After two beers, Missy started to leave. Then she decided to have just one more.

7. Sam and Fern

The electric hole saw whirred and whined with a piercing scream as it cut its cylindrical path through the thick wood of the Christian panel door. Fern Kluska, braced and intent, leaned on the saw till it cut all the way through, then shut off the saw and set it, spooling to silence, on the plastic sheet on the carpet. Beside it lay in meticulous order the twinkling brass pieces of the deadbolt lock set. Scooping the clear plastic safety glasses up on her forehead. Fern picked up the instruction sheet and strolled out to the big bay window in the living room.

In theory, Fern was pausing to review the instructions — she had, after all, never before installed a deadbolt lock. But the real reason for her pause was to check Avril’s driveway yet again. Sure enough, the Expedition had not returned.

Question was: Why had it been over there in the first place?

All day Fern had wondered. After all, Avril’s personal protection order barred Len from coming within a hundred yards of her. Yet late this morning there it was, his black Ford Expedition, sitting in the driveway of the home he and Avril had shared till last month. Fern’s first notion, upon spotting it while leaving for work, had been to call the cops. Her second thought had been to ring Avril to be sure she was all right. Her third option, and the one she had actually acted on, had been to do nothing and await developments.

Fern was, after all, no busybody. And she and Avril had never been friends friends. Fern had learned long ago not to get too chummy too quickly with newcomers. Many, especially much younger ones like Len and Wendy, bought into Boston-Edison on a pink cloud of infatuation with the neighborhood’s rich history. Celebrities, even dead ones, are a draw, and Boston-Edison had been home to names like Dodge and Fisher, Ford and Gordy. Why, the Georgia Peach himself, Ту Cobb, once lived beside Voight Park, three doors down from where Fern now stood. Decades later, people bought in, and having discovered in due course how much TLC (time, labor, and cash) it took to restore and maintain these dilapidated homes and how maddening it was dealing with the City of Detroit’s turgid bureaucracy, they often gave up and moved away.

So Fern never got too close too quickly to newcomers. She did make a point of taking them fresh bread and introducing herself (with Jathan, when he was younger, but never Latroy, who was too self-conscious). The house across from hers had gotten two loaves: one when Len and Wendy had arrived ten years ago, and the second when Avril had moved in with the freshly divorced Len. The departed (and, Fern knew, remarried) Wendy had become a chum; Len, some sort of businessman, was always brusque and on the go with no time to talk. Avril, however, fell somewhere in the middle: a front-porch chatmate.

Like Wendy before her, Avril had confided in Fern the play-by-play of the decline of her marriage to Len. Fern knew about the affairs, she was aware of the fights, she had read the personal protection order, and through it all she patiently provided a thin, reedy shoulder for Avril to cry on. Avril was annoyed that Len had built Wendy a swimming pool, but refused to install a hot tub for her. She was angry at the increasing amount of time and money Len spent in Detroit’s topless bars and new casinos. Most of all, she was terrified of Len’s stony silences and hair-trigger, fist-swinging rages. When the PPO was issued Avril swore, fluently and convincingly, that she would never speak to Len again. Even so, Fern knew that, PPO notwithstanding, Len had spent several nights with Avril across the street. Evidently, Fern reflected, the “fun” part of their dysfunctional relationship still worked pretty well.

Which was the main reason why Fern had done nothing when she saw Len’s Expedition in the driveway this morning. It had had no dew on it, so he must have come by after breakfast. By late afternoon, when Fern returned from her part-time job, it was gone.

Rousing herself, Fern went back to the master bedroom door. She had to finish the lock job quickly. Jathan would be home from school (or wherever. Fern reminded herself glumly) soon, and Fern needed no repeat of yesterday. Popping the hole cutter out of the saw, Fern inserted the spade bit into the chuck. The lock was half the business; the other half was the necessary sit-down with Latroy. Jathan was, after all, his son.

From out front came a piercing screech, a rapid series of loud thumps, and then a ripping metallic crash. Dropping her tools, Fern raced to the bay window. Across the street, the peacefulness of Avril Schooley’s property had been marred by a car, a red sedan, that had jumped the curb, plowed through a hedge, mangled several sections of wrought iron fence, and smacked dead center into a utility pole, where it now sat steaming.

Fern ran, throat-clenched, out the door, down her sidewalk, and across the street. Dead silence from Avril’s house; ditto from the other neighbors. The only action was a man obliviously walking his dog in Voight Park up the way. Digging in her pocket, Fern pulled her cell phone and called 911 while walking tentatively toward the hissing car. Its driver door gaped open and a woman Fern did not recognize slumped halfway out, immobile in her shoulder strap. Fern trotted over and bent down, checking vital signs. The woman was alive, semiconscious, and moaning softly, “Evan,” it sounded like, over and over. She reeked of alcohol, but Fern had seen and smelled much worse. Finishing her call, she situated the woman comfortably on the front seat and waited for the sound of the sirens.

Like prairie dogs popping from their holes, neighbors started to appear. But still there was no sign of Avril, no movement or sound from her house. Fern peered past the car and the demolished fence into the backyard, looking for signs of life. Nothing except wilting plants, a weedy patio, tipped-over lawn furniture, and the swimming pool showing the sheen of green.

And on the pool surface floated something else, something darkish. Fern squinted and stepped closer. Indistinctness gave way to a set of shapes that presently became a whole. It was a dog, a small spaniel. Not moving, dead still, floating there, a big dark wound gaping. Avril’s dog Sasha.

Frozen, Fern stared, then whirled around as a police car pulled up. In a flash Fern connected one dot after another: the violence, the PPO, the black Expedition in the driveway, the silent Schooley house.

Oh my God, Fern thought frantically, running toward the cop car. Avril!

8. Fern and Nick

Officer Nick Bolthouse was just getting out of his squad car when his radio crackled: “Patrol One Ten.”

Easing back into the driver’s seat, he pressed the shoulder mike: “Go.”

“What’s your ten-three, over.”

Bolthouse had not yet signed out for dinner. “Beechmont at Eight, over.”

“Roll on a potential ten-seventy-two at one eight oh oh nine, Loiswood, acknowledge.”

“Patrol One Ten,” Bolthouse said, pulling his door shut, wondering: potential domestic disturbance?

“Be further advised that a black Ford Expedition with Michigan plates may be on site or nearby. If so, obtain backup and detain the driver on a wanted-for-questioning out of Michigan.”

“Roger,” Bolthouse acknowledged, starting the engine. The big Police Interceptor engine roared as he goosed the black-and-white Crown Vic onto Beechmont, swinging left immediately on Eight Mile. Driving with one hand, he switched frequencies with the other and said, “Watch Commander, Patrol One Ten, over.”

“Watch Commander,” crackled the radio. “What’s up, Nick?”

“That’s my question,” Bolthouse said, racing north on the two-lane.

“Probably nothing,” the watch commander said. “Detroit P.D. had a ten-eighty-nine up there today. Suspect is one Schooley. Leonard Aitch: Caucasian, fifty-one, two hundred, black on brown. Victim was his second wife. Detroit got intelligence from a neighbor lady that Schooley’s first wife lives down here now. Name of Tudhope, Wendy. Thought is that Schooley may be heading our way to visit her.”

“Maybe looking for a clean sweep?”

“That’s the thought.”

“Roger,” Bolthouse said, running the light onto Clough Pike east.

“We tried to call her but her line’s busy,” the watch commander added.

“I’m two minutes out,” Bolthouse reported.

“Probably nothing.”

“Patrol One Ten.”

The entrance to the Anderson Hills subdivision came up fast. The patrolman rolled right and then left onto Loiswood. He knew this to be a dead-end street, and 18009 was at die end, driveway empty, two young teenaged girls playing badminton in the front yard. Bolthouse eased into the cul-de-sac and around, eyeing the house; the girls ignored him. Thumbing his mike he said, “Patrol One Ten, show me ninety-eight at one eight zero zero niner Loiswood. All’s calm. Intend to make inquiries. Please advise, over.”

“Patrol One Ten, stand by,” came the dispatcher. Bolthouse completed his U-turn and was facing out on Loiswood, barely moving now. Ahead of him, coming into the street, was a large boxy vehicle, an SUV, black. As it drew closer, Bolthouse saw that it was a Ford Expedition, and it had no front plate, which meant it was not from Ohio. Abruptly the Expedition slowed, then swerved sharply into a driveway.

“Got him,” Bolthouse reported without emotion, hitting the lights. “Now effecting traffic stop.” He shot toward the Expedition, which backed out in front of him and took off the way it had come. “Correction,” Bolthouse said, punching the gas. “Now ten-thirty-eight, eastbound toward Clough Pike, of a black Ford Expedition, Michigan plate Norma Michael Norma Two Six...”

After leading police from several jurisdictions on a high-speed chase, Leonard Herman Schooley, cornered in a pasture just east of Lexington, Kentucky, took his own life.

The others, whose lives intersected just once in the chain-reaction that saved Wendy Tudhope, met fates various, sundry, and wholly unconnected:

Officer Nick Bolthouse continues to patrol Cincinnati’s eastern zones. He just passed the sergeant’s exam.

Fern Kluska still lives with her husband, Latroy, in Detroit’s Boston-Edison community. Son Jathan is away at school.

Eric Fedderspill flew without incident for his Monaghan visit, where he hit the “home run” hoped for by his brother. They’re building a new headquarters.

Roger Twine’s marriage and career came to a rather abrupt end. For the time being he works the counter at an alternator shop in Westland.

Qian Hua now lives in Philadelphia. She is two days away from meeting the lawyer who will help her gain American political asylum as a member of Falun Gong.

Dario Giannetti unfortunately believed his most recent honey when she told him her soon-to-be-ex was not the jealous type.

Donna Nenno is happily single and steadily dating a man who worships the ground she walks on.

In Cincinnati, with her husband and daughters, Wendy Wilton Schooley Tudhope lives.

9. As for the Others

Missy Bowmer lurched upright at the sound of her name. Her vision clearing, she saw an officer leaning in the cell door. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where’s my lawyer?” Missy asked, stumbling to her feet. Her head pounded and her vision wobbled. God, I stink, she thought morosely.

“Meet you in the courtroom. Come on.” Taking her by the arm, the officer led her out of the cell and put the cuffs on her. Then he led her up the corridor, around a couple of corners, through two or three doors, and into the teeming courtroom. “Stand right there,” he said, taking off her handcuffs. “They’ll call you.”

Amid the courtroom clamor, a hearing seemed to be going on. Penned in behind a wood railing, Missy stood with several other people. After a moment she spotted her lawyer in the spectator area. He gave her a single nod. She waited, dry-mouthed. Brian had told her what to expect, but still she was scared.

“People versus Bowmer,” boomed a voice. “Step forward.”

Brian strode to a podium and beckoned her. Going to him, she turned and faced the judge, a stern-faced blonde woman wearing a black robe up high behind the bench. Papers ruffled, the microphone squeaked, and the clerk rattled, “Melissa Schrupp Bowmer, you are charged with driving while intoxicated, first offense. Reckless driving, property damage under five thousand dollars.”

“Your plea?” Judge Somers asked.

“Guilty,” Brian Dobozy said.

The judge issued the sentence — word for word as Brian had predicted. Then the next case was called. With a large hand on Missy’s back. Brian guided her out of the courtroom. As they reached the lobby, she heard him say, “I was brilliant in there, wasn’t I?”